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NASA Says Humans Are Causing Massive Changes In Location of Water Around the World (desertsun.com)
Using measurements from Earth-observing satellites, NASA scientists have found that humans have dramatically altered the location of water around the world. "The team of researchers analyzed 14 years of data from NASA's twin GRACE satellites and studied regions that have seen large increases or decreases in the total amount of freshwater, including water in lakes and rivers and water stored in underground aquifers, soil, snow and ice," reports The Desert Sun. From the report: The scientists examined precipitation trends and other data to determine the most likely causes of these huge losses and gains of water around the world. Their findings in a new study reveal that of the 34 "hotspots" of water change in places from California to China, the trends in about two-thirds of those areas may be linked to climate change or human activities, such as excessive groundwater pumping in farming regions. In eight of the 34 regions, the researchers said the trends reflect "possible" or "probable" impacts of climate change, including losses of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, precipitation increases in the high latitudes of Eurasia and North America, the retreat of Alaska's glaciers and melting ice fields in Patagonia.
They ascribed changes in 12 regions to natural variability, including a progression from a dry period to a wet period in the northern Great Plains, a drought in eastern Brazil and wetter periods in the Amazon and tropical West Africa. In 14 of the areas -- more than 40 percent of the hotspots -- the scientists associated the water shifts partially or largely with human activity. That included groundwater depletion combined with drought in Southern California and the southern High Plains from Kansas to the Texas Panhandle, as well as in the northern Middle East, northern Africa, southern Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The first-of-its-kind study has been published in the journal Nature.
They ascribed changes in 12 regions to natural variability, including a progression from a dry period to a wet period in the northern Great Plains, a drought in eastern Brazil and wetter periods in the Amazon and tropical West Africa. In 14 of the areas -- more than 40 percent of the hotspots -- the scientists associated the water shifts partially or largely with human activity. That included groundwater depletion combined with drought in Southern California and the southern High Plains from Kansas to the Texas Panhandle, as well as in the northern Middle East, northern Africa, southern Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The first-of-its-kind study has been published in the journal Nature.
Who the hell mods this garbage up? It's offtopic and there are far more useful things to discuss. For example, I live in Nebraska and these issues are relevant here. A lot of the state's water comes from the Ogallala Aquifer, and we are using it too rapidly. The groundwater is essential for agriculture from the Sandhills to the caprock in west Texas. Depleting the groundwater is causing subsidence of the land and surface streams are also drying up. With the exception of the Sandhills, it's very hard for precipitation to infiltrate all the way to the aquifer. Recharge is difficult, and we are using groundwater faster than it can be recharged. A lot of it is for irrigation and growing crops where they shouldn't be grown. I know that Nebraska is the Cornhusker State, but we just don't get enough rain to support growing corn in most of the state.
It's quite an important issue, and if you really must discuss politics, you can discuss water rights agreements and who really owns the water on your property. Kansas sued Nebraska over the streamflow in the Republican River. I believe it has changed, but at one point, it was illegal in Colorado to retain the rainwater that falls on your property, and that you don't really own the water. It's far more interesting than these rubbish posts about Trump and Hillary, and you can even still argue about politics if you want.
"California is the best place in the USA to produce vegetables, period". Right, and we were all a lot worse off without CA growing vegetables. Wait, didn't the CA food industry started in the 1920s? It might be a good place to grow them year round but there are more variables to growing vegetables such as, wait for it, adequate water supply.
"Those vast fields in the midwest mostly produce export crops, and corn for fuel ethanol which is grown continuously and with synthetic fertilizers that literally destroy topsoil and turn it into an inert hydroponic growth medium." A good percentage is also grown for fed and seed. It was roughly 40% fuel to 36% feed 5 years ago, the rest exported. So I was a bit off on the seed part but still have to grow seed corn. Ask DeKalb, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Cool hats btw.
Also, there's been plenty of advancement in agriculture that doesn't destroy the topsoil and helps minimize usage of fertilizers and weed / insect killer. No till is gain popularity for example. Bio-engineering of the plants is another area that has been advancing.
Tomatos, green beans, cucumbers, peppers all grow fine in the Midwest soil, not year round but that's why people use to can vegetables and have cellars. Grow big gardens, harvest and store for the winter until next year. If the CA vegetable industry were to drop off things would be rough for a few years but people would figure it out. And IMO the Midwest would be in good shape quicker than other areas.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
The issue isn't "tomatoes", most of the agricultural water use in California is for nuts, not tomatoes. This is important because (most) nuts travel quite well and can be packaged for transport easier, so costs to import are quite a bit less than other crops. This is also ignoring the fact that if California keeps doing what it is doing, they will be forced to stop anyway due to cost/depth of groundwater due to depletion.
So yes, please stop using as much water for crops such as nuts, and instead grow them somewhere else that gets more rainfall to support them.
It isn't just export crops and ethanol fuel. These vast fields area also growing huge amounts of animal feed that is trucked around the country to concentrated animal feeding operations and converted into protein and waste manure.
There is also a lot of it that is shipped over to chemical processing plants to make all of your favorite food additives.
The troubles with this kind of farming run deep.
The rest is wasted on an insane number of golf courses.
Actually, golf courses are going out of fashion and out of business (or just "closed" in the case of government-owned ones) in California.
Newer generations mostly aren't taking up golf and older ones are finding other things to do or just getting too old to enjoy it. Meanwhile the cost of water (for the horribly thirsty institutions) has skyrocketed and regulatory bodies are rejecting applications when misguided city councils or developers try to install one, rather than, say, parks with low-water landscaping) to fill their "open space" requirements.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way